Education Edition - 1736 Magazine, Fall 2019

BRIEFINGBy DAMON CLINE
HITS & MISSES
GREENE STREET IMPROVEMENTS: The sidewalk and paver work along the
Greene Street corridor look great, and so do the new traffic circles in the historic
Laney-Walker/Bethlehem neighborhood. Hopefully, these are just a little taste of the
improvements to come when the transportation tax-funded downtown streetscape
plan starts getting implemented. The plan will not only make the city more walkable
and bikeable, but give a much-needed facelift to streets and thoroughfares that
haven’t seen major investment since the 1970s. Downtown’s public spaces deserve to
match the vibrancy of its private ones.
BID OPPOSITION: The majority of downtown property owners and stakeholders
are not satisfied with the city’s current level of attention to downtown infrastructure
and cleanliness, which is why grumblings for renewal of the city’s former
downtown Business Improvement District never went away after the Augusta
Commission disbanded the original program, created in 2007, years ago. The
downtown of today, clearly, is not the downtown of a decade ago. Members of the
Augusta Commission have repeatedly stated they have no interest in renewing the
self-funded program that operated the Clean Augusta Downtown Initiative (known
as “CADI”) even if a majority of property owners want it. We have to ask: Why?
EDGAR’S ABOVE BROAD: We can’t think of a better way to get new people to
take a second look at an older downtown building. The operators of 699 Broad St.’s
storied Pinnacle Club, Goodwill Industries of Middle Georgia and the CSRA, have
upped the ante and are in the process of expanding their hospitality operation at the
downtown midrise to include a balcony bar in the building’s currently-vacant executive
suite on the third floor. The bar/eatery, to be called Edgar’s Above Broad, should
be a complimentary addition to the city’s burgeoning theater/cultural district on the
700 block as well as the office building’s future tenants.
DEPOT POLITICS: Efforts by what appears to be a small cadre of Augusta
Commissioners to derail the $94 million Riverfront at the Depot project is as
lamentable as it is mystifying. Why would any city officials work overtime to throw
wrenches into the gears of a tax base-boosting project that would be the largest
private-sector investment in downtown in nearly three decades? We’ve yet to hear
a cogent explanation. Yes, issues with the project’s parking lot still need to be
worked out with the neighboring Unisys office, but there is almost no downside to
the deal enabling a developer to transform property vacant for five decades into a
vibrant mixed-use development. If anyone can point to a legitimate liability or risk
in this public-private partnership, please show us.
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